Over the span of 52 weeks, there are about 4 – 6 weeks which make my life more miserable than an Irish priest skipped out by the Popes pardon. These periods in blocks of three are the weeks leading up to university deadlines. I hate them. With a burning passion to challenge that of the smug sun we see cruising across our sky.
For the other 8 or so weeks of a semester I am my usual self, I get out of bed and go to all my lectures and seminars, do some of the reading, (not all because that wouldn’t be the student-y thing to do now would it) and generally keep on top of things.
But when a friend mentions the upcoming deadlines in passing conversation, all that motivation, all that enthusiasm to learn abandons ship and seems to defect to internet websites for watching all the best American TV shows.
Fantastic. Just what I need. It doesn’t help that two of my housemates have an unbelievable skill to scour these internet sites for TV shows and pick out all the best ones purely because of a name.
Sons of Anarchy is a currently the top of my viewing list. It’s a show with a lot going for it. With a great cast including Ron Perlman, Katie Sagal and the Commissioner Gordon’s crooked partner who gets a five story interrogation from the Caped Crusader in Batman Begins.
Sons of Anarchy revolves around a motorcycle gang known and referred to as SAM CRO, short for Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original
SAM CRO are involved in all the things associated with successful gangs, gun running, offering vehicle protection, owning local law enforcement and shipping out guns to drug dealers and the IRA, all very normal stuff for an outfit based out of a little Californian town known as Charming. They writers could not have picked a better name.
Now back to the point at hand. When a show grabs you by the scruff of the neck after 15 minutes of the first episode and turns you into its voyeuristic neighbour from the other side of the LCD fence, deadlines and work tends to take a backseat.
I want to pass my year; I’m a great fan of my course. It’s helping me prepare for a career I want to progress into and even comes with an official accreditation that means I’m not an oblivious eejit who thinks he knows what he’s doing, contrary to the popular belief of my house.
But my God do I not want to write about the current state of anonymity for victims and defendants in sex offence crimes or why youths use consumption of modern products to construct their lives and form relationships. While essential so I don’t one day get my arse sued back to the good old days of wooden stocks and a rife supply of rotten vegetables, there are more entertaining things to do.
A thousands on anonymity was ok, I got by and learnt a few new things. Stuff that I shouldn’t probably not know because while most of the world sees some of the newest offences added to the Sexual Offences Act 2003 disgraceful and heinous, I find them entertaining and see them as nuggets of intellectual gold that all my friends just have to know.
Distractions created by the internet are far too many. Television shows, Youtube clips, e-zines and election results. All of these are more interesting than essays. At the thought of writing my three thousand word media essay I get a mental picture of myself belly crawling over a mix of salt, glass, thumb tacks and skittles acting as a chariot across the dangerous salt, glass and thumb tack fields between the Sugar Gum Kingdom and City of Enviable Comfort for the Internet Pixie.
Perhaps an over exaggeration, but you can get the gist of what I would rather do than the essay.
Every time this period comes around every semester, Facebook groups like “Fuck You Harvard Referencing! Fuck You” and “I leave my Uni assignments to the last minutes and then want to die” pop up and show just how unorganised the majority of university students are.
Maybe it’s the 15, going on 16 consecutives I have spent in full time education that has finally gotten to the point where I just feel like I want a break. While more than aware that nothing in this life comes for free (thank you annual student loan statement) and that having a degree will hopefully do my career a world of good, part of me just wants no deadlines, no lectures, nothing formal. A holiday perhaps, or maybe a weekend of nothing...
Hold up... haven’t iI just described the general gist of modern day student life?
Crap.
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